Romans 1:31Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He finally ascends to the root of so great a corruption, calling them "without love, implacable." Christ also points to this same cause of wickedness when He says: "Because lawlessness will be multiplied, love will grow cold" (Mt 24:12). Paul speaks of this here as well: "implacable, without love, covenant-breakers, unmerciful," showing that they destroyed the very gift of nature.

"Senseless." And rightly so. For could those who did not obey their parents understand anything? "Faithless," that is, unstable in agreements. "Without love, implacable, merciless." The root of all evils is the very cooling of love. From this it comes that one man will not be reconciled with another, one does not love another, and one does not show mercy to another. Christ also said of this: "Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold" (Mt 24:12). Nature itself joins us to one another, as it does the other living creatures, but men did not understand this.

The Apostle says that there is no difference between vices hidden within the soul and open vices publicly gloried in. He joins and sets them together: "And since they did not see fit to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is improper. They were filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They were full of envy, murder, strife... insolent, boastful, proud, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, faithless, without love, implacable, unmerciful. They know the righteous judgment of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death."

This means being without understanding, without love, and also without God, since in them there was fleshly love. Knowing the righteousness of God from the natural law, they nevertheless did not know God's righteousness enough to renounce all that they were doing, which is worthy of punishment and death.

They are senseless because, having slipped into lawless life, they lost the distinguishing marks of rationality. They are implacable, that is, lovers of an unsociable and wicked life. They are without love, that is, unwilling to learn the laws of friendship. They are covenant-breakers, fearlessly violating mutual agreements. They are merciless, imitating beasts in cruelty.

The Gentiles also had natural concepts of good and evil, so that they could easily distinguish one from the other. They even knew that those who do improper deeds are worthy of death (Rom 1:32). Yet in their life they gave themselves over to shameful passions and unnatural vices. This again leaves them without defense at God's judgment.

According to the Apostle, God's wrathful judgment upon the Gentiles is already visible in the very unnaturalness of their vices. This cannot be regarded otherwise than as an actual punishment from God, for they degraded human nature itself. "And since they did not care to have God in their understanding, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is improper"...

Then there follows in the Apostle the darkest picture of Gentile dissipation.

Since men abandoned God, God also abandoned them. They went along the path of their passions, which led them to the most unnatural vices. Through these, the fundamental and natural relations of the sexes were distorted, and the most dreadful indecencies arose. The further they went, the more they made men immoral and, at the same time, irrational.

All this impiety arose because men did not care to have God in their understanding. That is, they did not strive to know God. Having known Him, they did not preserve true knowledge. Above all, they did not keep in their mind the thought of God as the guiding power in every conception and as the directing power in life.

"Without understanding," asynetoi, "because, having slipped into lawless living, they lost the distinctive marks of rationality" (Blessed Theodoret). Or "without understanding," asyneidetoi, means unconscious, shameless, and more irrational than any others (Gennadius). "Implacable," asynthetoi, means those with whom one cannot get along and who themselves do not wish to live in concord with others. They are contentious and quarrelsome. That is, "they have loved an unsociable and wicked life" (Blessed Theodoret). "By this the Apostle proves that they destroyed the very gift of nature. For we have a natural disposition toward communion with one another, one that belongs even to the wildest beasts. Thus it is said: every animal loves its like, and every man his neighbor (Sir 13:19).